Hashtag Trending Aug.4-Microsoft cloud providers; Researchers discover how to jailbreak Tesla’s infotainment system

Meta releases AI to create music from text, Microsoft makes some licensing concessions for non-Microsoft cloud providers, and researchers discover how to jailbreak added features on a Tesla.

These are the top tech news stories on today’s Hashtag Trending.  

I’m your host Jim Love, CIO of IT World Canada and Tech News Day in the US.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has released the code and model weights for several AI tools designed to create sound from text-based prompts. The tools, collectively known as AudioCraft, include MediaGen, which creates music from text, and AudioGen, which generates sound effects based on written descriptions. A third tool, EnCodec, is a decoding engine that Meta is also making available to researchers. These tools could simplify the process of adding background audio to video games or digital worlds. However, Meta acknowledges that the system was trained predominantly on English metadata and lacks diversity in the types of music used.

Sources include: Axios

Intel’s Network and Edge group, which accounts for 11 per cent of Intel’s revenues, has seen a significant drop in sales this year, raising questions about the company’s efforts in the telecom sector. The group’s sales fell by a third in the first half of the year, and it reported a $487 million loss. This drop is attributed to customers reducing purchases to adjust to lower demands across product lines. Despite setbacks, Intel has expanded its relationship with Ericsson, with Ericsson committing to use Intel as a contract manufacturer of customized 5G chips based on 18A, one of Intel’s next-generation processes. However, the market for open and virtual RAN products has not grown as quickly as expected, and the broader market is currently in a slump.

Sources include: Data Center Knowledge

In an article titled “The Cloud Is a Prison. Can the Local-First Software Movement Set Us Free?” Gregory Barber writing in WIRED discusses the concept of “local-first software”. This term refers to a new model of software development that prioritizes the user’s personal computer over cloud-based servers. The idea is to maintain the benefits of cloud computing, such as accessibility and collaboration, but without the need for a central server.  Developers no longer have to worry about server management but do not need a public or even private cloud. The new approach features what are called conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs), which allow multiple people to collaborate on a file and automatically resolve conflicts. The concept is still in its early stages, but it’s gaining traction among developers disillusioned with the current state of cloud computing.

Sources include:  WIRED

Microsoft has made a slight concession in its licensing policies that allows customers with specific licenses to run Office applications on Amazon’s cloud service, AWS. The move comes after Europe’s competition regulators began probing Microsoft’s business practices. The licensing change partially reverses a 2019 policy that required customers with perpetual licenses to purchase new licenses to run those applications on AWS, Google Cloud, or Alibaba infrastructure. The new licensing terms, which only benefit AWS cloud customers, allow users with Microsoft 365 E3/E5/A3/A5 and Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses to run Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise/business on Amazon WorkSpaces. However, the concession is still considered a premium way to run Office on WorkSpaces and remains a costly alternative to Azure.

Sources include: The Register

A team of researchers has discovered a method to jailbreak Tesla’s infotainment system, enabling them to access paid upgrades, such as heated rear seats, for free. The technique, known as voltage glitching, involves manipulating the supply voltage of the AMD processor that operates the infotainment system. This manipulation can trick the CPU into executing different instructions and accepting manipulated code. The researchers also managed to extract the encryption key used to authenticate the car to Tesla’s network, potentially opening up other attack avenues. However, the attack requires physical access to the car, and mitigating it would necessitate hardware replacement. The researchers plan to present their findings at the upcoming Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas.

Sources include: Tech Crunch

Those are the top tech news stories for today.  Hashtag Trending goes to air 5 days a week with a special weekend interview show we call “the Weekend Edition.”

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We love your comments.  I’ve continued to shorten the stories this week. Still dying to know whether people find this a better pace or a more enjoyable experience.

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So please go to the article at itworldcanada.com/podcasts – you’ll find a text edition there. Click on the x or the check mark but tell me what you think. 

I’m your host, Jim Love. Have a Fantastic Friday and a great long weekend. Being in Canada, we’ll be taking that long weekend and we’ll be back with a newscast next Tuesday.

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